Old Evans opened the hall door, and silently led the two young men through the hall, and opening the dining-room door, left them there.  They stood looking down on the Big Doctor in silence.  The strong, coarse face had taken on that aloof dignity, even splendour of expression, that death can confer.  The servants had covered all else with a sheet; the soaked fur collar of the coat was turned up, and made a pillow for the big, iron-grey head.

With a shaking hand Barty turned back the sheet.  His father’s thick, powerful hands were crossed on his broad breast.  The son stooped and kissed them, humbly; then he replaced the sheet, and kissed the heavy brow, from which all the marks of the turmoil of life had been smoothed.

“I believe he is near us,” he whispered; he took a prayer-book from his pocket and knelt, his head resting on the covered form.

Larry knelt also.  If only Barty had not told him that abhorrent thing.  He tried to forget it, to pray for the soul of the man who had, as he believed, always been kind to him, and a good friend.  Larry was undevout, careless, thinking little of spiritual things, so little, that he had scarcely troubled himself either to question or to accept what he had been taught, but he was quick to respond to emotion of any kind; now he listened, with an unaccustomed reverence, to Barty’s voice, brokenly whispering the prayers of his Church.  Their unfamiliar beauty stirred his imagination, their appeal for mercy wakened his heart, and made him ask himself what was he that he should refuse mercy!  He felt the anger, that had only been roused in him within the last few minutes, dying, merged in pity and in awe.

“By the multitude of Thy mercies, ever compassionate to human frailty, deliver him, O Lord!” Barty’s husky, shaking voice murmured.  “Give him, O Lord, eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon him—­”

The door was opened and Evans said: 

“The police are here, and are asking for Mr. Mangan.”

Barty rose from his knees; without a word, he placed the prayer book in Larry’s hands, and left the room.

Larry had risen also, but instead of following Barty he knelt again by the Big Doctor’s still figure, and began to speak to him in the low voice that is the mark of recognition of the great mystery of death, and tells of that singular, sudden reverence that is bestowed on the body when the spirit has left it; a reverence that seems to imply a belief in the nearness of the freed spirit, which is unsupported by the immeasurable remoteness of the expression of the mask that it once wore.

“Doctor,” said Larry, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’ll chance it.  I want to tell you that it’s not my fault about Tishy, and the wedding not coming off.  She bolted with Ned Cloherty last night—­” he checked himself, and felt he ought to apologise for talking slang, and then thought that if it were the Doctor, himself, he wouldn’t mind.  “Tishy